Plot | strategic design & innovation agentstag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-655302013-04-29T09:36:00+01:00Every business needs a storyTypePadFilming Makerstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e201901ba13e11970b2013-04-29T09:36:00+01:002013-04-27T15:54:59+01:00Having the pleasure of working alongside some of the fabulous makes in CodeLab - the home ot the Masters in Tangible Interaction Design that Nick has been Track Chair of this year, made me want to capture some of that...Plot agents
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Having the pleasure of working alongside some of the fabulous makes in CodeLab - the home ot the Masters in Tangible Interaction Design that Nick has been Track Chair of this year, made me want to capture some of that atmosphere, and ethos. </p>
<p>So here are five short film interviews of some people who are gong to do more great things. What's so pleasurable is to hear their passion about making, and the warmth you get from them as they describe why they make. 3 simple questions were all we asked them to get into their state of mind for making, and having a little space to share why.</p>
<p><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/64914656" frameborder="0" height="225" width="300"></iframe>
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<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/64914656">Meng</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user17825159">Gill Wildman</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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<br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/64914655" frameborder="0" height="225" width="300"></iframe>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/64914655">Zack</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user17825159">Gill Wildman</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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&nbsp;<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/64914657" frameborder="0" height="225" width="300"></iframe>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/64914657">Madeline</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user17825159">Gill Wildman</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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<p><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/64742497" frameborder="0" height="225" width="300"></iframe>
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<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/64742497">Daiki</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user17825159">Gill Wildman</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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<p><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/64742496" frameborder="0" height="225" width="300"></iframe>
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<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/64742496">Deren</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user17825159">Gill Wildman</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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&nbsp;Enjoy!</div>
Little Printing Hackerytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e2017d42ea1f1f970c2013-04-18T19:03:40+01:002013-04-18T19:03:40+01:00Hackday ingredients. 4 Little Printers sent to us by the lovely Berg, 2 bridges, 9 rolls of paper, mugs, PG Tips teabags and Rich Tea biscuits, on a tray. Mars Bars, paper and sharpies. 15-20 people. 11 people signed up...Plot agents

11 people signed up and more came. Some just dropped in, joining us at different stages when they were ready, or could get away. Architects, developers and designers racing against the end of the year deadlines, who find it hard to prioritise something for themselves, and others, came to say hello, how are you doing and stayed longer than they expected to. To get this kind of turnout so late in the semester is a big deal, it was now or never.

With a sleepy start, after sharing the film provided by Alex and Alice explaining the constraints, guidelines and how to use the nifty developer tools; we then pointed them to html and css cheat sheets, the Little Printer publisher handbook, and all of the things they needed to set up an account. Each printer had a code to connect and get going. Nick and I drew a whole bunch of models on the board to try and make some sense of how the whole system all fits together.

Some got stuck right in, printing out all kinds of anything to get to see what it did, others wanted to absorb everything about the constraints before they even put idea to thermal paper. And everyone else did everything else in between.

We had a mixed group of writers, graphic designers, coders, developers, 3 professors, 15 students, and more than a third were women, attracted I think by the cutest printer ever. There was php skills, journalism skills, visual layout skills... api stitching skills, and map skills.

It took us some time to get the printers up and running, and everyone able to access one easliy. Of course it had to be my own printer that went wierd on us and needed to be reset... and then we were off.

Meng Shi and Keqin Chou's Pizza maker went into the finer details of hard coding a pizza generator in something dutifully hard core. Meng later worked it into Googly Glass - a whole new set of eyes per day.

Joo made a simple personal monthly calender to remind us of the important things in life.

Aisling Keillher's Expert Witness is a daily paper doll to help you keep track of your flatmate as she or he leaves for the day - just in case you need to be an expert witness and describe them to the authorities. An added extra is the state of mind they are in when they leave, in this case how the ascii figure looks just like the real thing!

Sean was intrigued by just how long a publication could be made, and with a little Photoshop slicing made a panoramic Pittsburgh with his slices of the city landscape using the handy rapid prototyper.

Madeleine Gannon created an intruiging Alibi Generator - when you need an alibi, this Little Printer publication allows you to create evidence - you just add the relevant details about your whereabouts to reciepts from Petrol stations, or ATM slips that prove 'I was here at the time, your honour'.

And as a warm up hse made a finger puppet!

Kyree Holmes wanted to try out pocket sized maps, and her first idea was to show the Galleries and Museums in the area. Using local data shape files, and the brilliant Tile Mill, she managed to make a delightful map of local arts, with key landmarks and names. She also got to try out direct print images and to make an emergency security pass print out.

I had been waiting for the chance to get stuck in, so after trying out the rapid prototyper for a few things (pointing it at a website, chucking a logo at it) I then started really thinking about an idea, rather than what could be done. Starting with some lo-fi sharpie prototyping, Ransom Notes started with a note to a friend with a remittance advice slip attached for easy payment. View Matcher is for use on Mount Washington - a place that has the best view of the city skyline in Pittsburgh, part of which is printed on your printout-and-cutout. You match to the buildings and discover what really goes on in this town (usually some old white guy abusing his power). Where You Are Now and Then is a print out addition to directions, and gives you a streetscape image of where you are going with a searched image of the same place, but in a different time.

Scott got distracted by trying to get Processing to do what he wanted. With another day, maybe he would have something to share. That’s no bad thing - having the time to get a good run at something, even if its nothing to do with Little Printer - is a complete joy!?

Jonathan Ota used the Little Printer email bridge to get us to send emails directly and even mark them up in html. It's going to be used for a larger project on gun crime he is doing. Don't ask.

Bringing it all together at the end of the day, we talked about what we did, and where we were more challenged. There was far less group work than I expected, and delighted by some really funny explorations.

Our group did not seem to want to talk together about ideas before making (our suggestion of getting together for a tiger tank lock-up ideas knockabout session was politely ignored). Despite early skills sharing (Who know's about Java? Who knows how to write? Who knows how to put things together visually... er, make things in Photoshop) the fabled crossover between disciplines didn't happen as much as it could have. If I did this again, I think spending a bit more time warming people up to talk more about what they would like to do (even if they don't yet know) would make things easier to share later.

Hackdays are a great format to get some rapid work done, and to get somewhere in a single day, and to give yourself the space to do that kind of pressured thinking and making - together. What was apparent was how different people are about knowing how to ask for help and how to work together. I’m not sure that fell evenly along the cliched designer/developer lines. Hmmm, how about a correlation graph publication?

So there are some questions here for me. How much should a Hackday be facilitated? Should people be left to work as they wish, or directed/helped to work in teams. If they have just come to do something, is that enough anyway? All I know is that I would love to do more...

Thanks Berg for playing with us over long distance.

Doha Brought backtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e2017eea564984970d2013-04-17T19:35:34+01:002013-04-17T19:35:34+01:00It's such a great thing to travel, bring ideas back and share them, and then discover something new in the process. Nick and Mary-Lou Arscott shared a really thought provoking peice about working in Doha, the City, the people and...Plot agents

It's such a great thing to travel, bring ideas back and share them, and then discover something new in the process.

Nick and Mary-Lou Arscott shared a really thought provoking peice about working in Doha, the City, the people and culture around making.

Here's some pictures.

Little Printing Daytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e2017d42be1a41970c2013-04-12T16:41:09+01:002013-04-12T16:41:09+01:00This weekend we are holding the first Little Printer Hackday at the C0DELAB the Lab where Nick has been running Tinker Lab and Making things interact. This hackday is aimed at developers, designers and writers, and we have journalist and...Plot agents

This weekend we are holding the first Little Printer Hackday at the C0DELAB the Lab where Nick has been running Tinker Lab and Making things interact.

This hackday is aimed at developers, designers and writers, and we have journalist and an illustrator joining us too. Friends will be popping in and tea and biscuits will be served.

Its deliberately cross disciplinary. Its deliberately collaborative with Berg - they have provided Little Printers and made films to help us run it to their standards, and consistent message. We've been working with Andy Huntingdon, Alice Bartlett and Alex on the logistics. They are delightfully helpful and open to sharing, which really makes things work. Look at what they sent us!

We'll be blogging about it later, but just very excited to play with this lovely kit, and exploring a mew media form.

tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e2017c3857b823970b2013-04-04T17:23:41+01:002013-04-04T17:23:41+01:00Nick's work with Ramy El Samahy, Kelly Hutzell and Mary-Lou Arscott in Dohar recently.Plot agents
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Nick&#39;s work with Ramy El Samahy, Kelly Hutzell and Mary-Lou Arscott in Dohar recently.<br/>
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/63240488" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen> </iframe></p></div>
Hybrid makers and doerstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e2017ee9be5504970d2013-03-26T13:21:00+00:002013-03-26T17:14:41+00:00Nick's been the track chair of a very interesting community of makers and hybrid peiople, and it has been a great pleasure to get to know this whole community of people here. Masters of Tangible Interaction Design are people who...Plot agents

Nick's been the track chair of a very interesting community of makers and hybrid peiople, and it has been a great pleasure to get to know this whole community of people here. Masters of Tangible Interaction Design are people who hack, make, digitise, 3D print, propose and dream about new things in the world in vivid and tangible ways.

This is how Nick describes who and what they are from a recent thread they had on who they are and where they fit in the world.

MTID is an unconventional course.

It has a purpose ― to produce 'hybrid producers' ― makers with abilities that mix the physical and the digital: domains that up until today's era of ubiquitous computing have been dealt with strictly separately. It offers some material support in the form of simple facilities for making and coding, and a community. It deliberately eschews a one-size-fits-all mentality in it's curriculum, personnel, and the people who pass through it. It is opportunistic in the use it makes of 'disciplines'. It is hosted by Architecture ― but this does not determine the outcome to be buildings...

It sets out with a deliberately 'loose' framework ― a transformation ― structured as a three-act story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end ― but with a strong commitment to the students' individual and personal ownership of their own work.

The course emphasises action and reflection, not just skills acquisition: encouraging people to embody their ideas as propositions, proposals, and prototypes; engaging with the world through the student's own curiosity and experience and personally-driven transformation. That is hard work, and the result of the student's own initiative…

What's at stake in this transformation? I think a useful breakdown is provided by Eric Stolterman's schema of ― Mindset; Knowledgeset; Skillset; and Toolset. These are what change and transform through the the three semesters.

It offers the opportunity and context to extend and amplify these all into new areas for each student, in a critical community setting of fellow travellers whose differences are an important part of the mix, allowing MTIDers to compare and contrast their approaches in their struggle to get to grip with the contemporary world.

This world context now changes much more rapidly than any university can actually respond to with a canned curricula. And these changes and resources are much more visible to everyone through the panoptic machine of the internet. MTID allows for a holistic survey of the fast-changing scene 'out there' ― and allows for the opportunity of designing a way of dealing with that ― and not necessarily with a readymade set of industrial roles.

In this way it is a genuinely post-modern course, with the future being something yet to be invented, mapped and shaped rather than just fit-into.

MTIDers have the challenge/misfortune/opportunity to be part of this avant-garde that gets to define what the future is ― it always takes mainstream industry a while to catch up (but that's why it is called mainstream.) There are early-adopters out there but all the names of roles are strange, there is a lot of noise, and it takes time to build a network.

I pointed CodeLabbers at a conference/hackathon/thing/event in London earlier today ―

http://uplondon.net

― it's exactly a sign of what an early market looks like as it generates itself. This stuff is breaking free of research labs and mutating as it hits the ground.

Do any of the people involved in this have conventional industrial 'jobs'? Who will show up? What kind of mindset, knowledgeset, skillset, toolset is necessary for this? And if not the existing MTID then what?

Plotting with HarvardXDesigntag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e2017c371bd7ef970b2013-02-26T18:25:08+00:002013-02-26T21:50:33+00:00HarvardXDesign - a blast of a student conference The weekend of 25/26 January was the first in a Student-run conference that boldly aims to "build a platform of innovation by engaging key stakeholders through the creative process." A group of...Plot agents

The weekend of 25/26 January was the first in a Student-run conference that boldly aims to "build a platform of innovation by engaging key stakeholders through the creative process." A group of students from Harvard managed to bring a whole lot of designers and design and business students together for a weekend to talk and to work through a design challenge.

Crossing the streams of the design and business schools may be a huge deal, but it didn't look like two worlds. The conference moved across Harvard Innovation Lab, Harvard Business School, and the Graduate School of Design, and brought some really interesting people together. And then there were the students. What a bunch of confident, openly networking the room look demons they were. And how friendly and talented and up for taking on something as tough and demanding as a 5 hour challenge of a huge gnarly problem, in which they have had a particular experience which they needed to put aside in order to think in new ways.

I'm always impressed by people who can move out of their own experience and viewpoints and are able to see differently, despite either difficult experiences or entitled ones. And these guys could too, and then be enthralled by the new things they were thinking about. That's not about being smart or privileged, but about agility of thinking, and that is a skill for life.

Friday night had a group of speakers setting the tone of a more contemporary and diverse kind of design. Apart from agreeing with each other, the really interesting voices came from an ebullient Marco Steinberg from SITRA, and the wonderfully eloquent Sanford Kwinter, who obviously has a huge support from the audience there. He's came to Carnegie Mellon a couple of weeks later for Liss Werner's Encoding Architecture Conference.

Saturday had parallel tracks of either listening to speakers or working on a challenge, and I'd been talked into running one of the (winning) challenge teams. "The challenge is a studio workshop of interdisciplinary teams –
designers, students, faculty and professionals – who work on a
particular challenge problem."

Selecting a challenge of new forms of education was big enough to keep us spinning for a few hours, and finally coming up with a more person-led, life educating concept and framework, with a clarifying bee and flower metaphor that put people at the heart of deciding what they learn. An interesting concept, and well worth further thinking if any of the participants get a chance to work on it again. You never know how these things recur over time…

The final session was a large critique of the ideas from 2 teams (mine included, did I mention?) and some feedback from Bruce Nussbaum, Patrick Whitney, Harry West from Continuum, Charles Adler from Kickstarter. Core77 suggest that the other team had the better idea, but the trashing they got from the panel suggests a diifferent outcome...having been there...And see Bruce Nussbaum's critique below...

Credit needs to go to Roderick McMullen, Jonathan Arena and Miriam Roure for great organisation and brilliant harnessing of stablished designers who on the whole brought less ego and more energy. Really great event.

Entrepreneurs everywheretag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e2017d3bebf232970c2012-09-09T02:24:59+01:002012-09-09T02:24:59+01:00After a summer exploring services for entrepreneurs in London, we got to work with the Tepper School of Business and their Entrepreneurial Bootcamp that started yesterday. They deliberately mix up the disciplines across the CMU campus - and recently more...Plot agents

After a summer exploring services for entrepreneurs in London, we got to work with the Tepper School of Business and their Entrepreneurial Bootcamp that started yesterday. They deliberately mix up the disciplines across the CMU campus - and recently more have come from outside of the business school than ever before. There is a real hunger for understanding these skills.

We had a completely enjoyable day and got to meet some dynamic people from across CMU and Heinz School, and got some new groups to meetup and work together rapidly. Some nice ideas by the end of the session, too.

Fascinating what you can do in a few hours!

Nierenberg Teaching: Thinking about the last 2 yearstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e20176160b773b970c2012-07-13T10:02:00+01:002012-07-12T17:54:34+01:00*quite a long blog warning* This time last year, I was feeling very worn down from teaching in a new environment, and having developed and delivered 3 new classes - Loops, Happy Lab and Pittsburgh Digital City and trying to...Plot agents

*quite a long blog warning*

This time last year, I was feeling very worn down from teaching in a new environment, and having developed and delivered 3 new classes - Loops, Happy Lab and Pittsburgh Digital City and trying to get a new programme of Masters courses developed from a base of ongoing thinking workshops with the faculty group. Teaching. Like facilitating. It's not as easy as it looks. It takes a lot out of you.

I had also completely underestimated what the teaching had given me back, in the sense of being able to work through some ideas through the selection, composition and scope of the classes. Slowly that understanding is making sense, much like any learning does, most of it happens after you've been through the experience.

So this year, we developed four new classes - first was Wonderlab, a 5 week rapid course in which we rotated students with Play lab and Speak lab as the core 3 elements of the final year for the undergraduates in the school of design. Written to stir curiosity and to show designers that they can do both things with the artifacts they make, as in make the tools and devices to provoke and capture responses from people. Reactions varied, but there was a lot of anxiety around not knowing what to make - they had to work that out for themselves. Moving from the clarity and simplicity of having a brief, to making your own was particularly frustrating for some, but most managed to do it well, especially when they gave in to not being right.

In the Spring, we piloted StrategyLab and TinkerLab, two new classes in the School, and both attracting a wide variety of students from different parts of the university. StrategyLab was an exploration of design as a business strategy, a deep dive into the kinds of design and business strategy tools available such as the Business Model Canvas, or classic tools like SWOT, design audit tools and tools made specifically for the class, followed up by a whole bunch of case studies and readings. They were then challenged to develop a strategy in response to an existing company, or create a new one - commercial or for profit - and over five weeks they did that.

We had the final crit as a tongue in cheek version of Dragons Den/Shark Tank, and MK Haley from the ETC, Mark Gross and Steve Stadelmeier did great jobs as red brace wearing judges, although the audience had the end of the year weariness. Some great pieces of work were produced - pushing new ways of being able to communicate strategies from guides, to reports, to social media strategy guides.

Nick made a great group of tinkerers gather twice a week and make some delirium things. He kept it really simple, staying near to what they could do. Six muscles to develop in paired stages: dream & design, develop & debug, document and demonstrate. It looked like this...

The last class was a 15 week project with final year seniors called Future City Services. We took a mixed group of industrial and communication designers and put them through the paces of future scenario tools, with the challenge of looking at Pittsburgh 10 years in the future. That's right, we said, that's when you're probably settled, and some of you with babies even. That was a shock to the super-young social mediaistes. They dived in, then with the great support of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership had an expert tour of the space we were designing in. The complexities of ownership, and challenges of creating a lively street level space, and animating the minimal but vital open public realm. We then asked than what services a city like Pittsburgh might need in 10 years, and they made some great leaps of faith into what could be - sometimes with a shove from us - and then create evidence of its existence - oh, now we can make something? Great!

Special mention goes to Alison Tran and Maya's visualization of citizen data flows in a local government participatory data service. Their work was thoughtfully tangible through characters, stories, string and cardboard.

Victor Ng's film authentic branding project of idea engagement was completely effective in showing what it could be like, and his conversation with a senior project director was confident and revealed just how much the idea was relevant. Using another student's concept as content for his idea capture piece, above.

Regina Son's range of Fabbing shops that she thought would pop up over the next few years started some exciting thinking about new forms of key cutting-like spaces.

Some made such delightful services - Ahra Cho's street level tamagotchi that reacts to positive or negative news around race relations in Pittsburgh - she projected that the community will be a lot more diverse in 10 years, and that could be a problem.

Alexis Caldero's Look Up project created new walkways and view spaces at the top of the tall places in downtown, giving a whole new set of encounter spaces. Her set of photos from these places were just delightful.

Eric Habich looked at new ways of small scale decision making for city centre groups, and Alex reworked a riverfront with vibrant independent clubs and night places. Samia tacked the public transport, and Frances's programmed a public square with astronomical events.

All of these students had not tackled urban design oriented projects, and they did come right out of their comfort zones, and in our really productive conversation at the end of the final session, told us how much they got what we were trying to teach - about a different role for the design skills they have, and with great relief, we really felt like we had achieved what we set out to do. The people from the PDP were intrigued by the work and I hope will have those ideas in their resource for thinking about the future they are working on. I like the world they imagined and designed for, and I hope they get to make it.

Teaching. It's an interesting process. Infuriating, demanding, and deeply, deeply pleasurable. May I always be lucky enough to always do a little teaching as well as the work I do.

Making design is not like making arttag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834790a6569e2017615dc835d970c2012-06-28T08:33:00+01:002012-06-27T08:38:36+01:00It's funny. You know how you know that design is different to art. Well it is, and its partly because you get to decide what the art is (as opposed to making something for someone) and you get to decide...Plot agents

It's funny. You know how you know that design is different to art. Well it is, and its partly because you get to decide what the art is (as opposed to making something for someone) and you get to decide when it is done, when its finished (as opposed to when they are happy with it, or it is delivered in a final form). Well, we got to make some art and Ben Saks made a film about it.